


The Pet Experiment

by agentverbivore (verbivore8642)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fitz's POV, Fluff, Grumpy Fitz, Jealous Fitz, Scientist Jemma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 02:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verbivore8642/pseuds/agentverbivore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, When Fitz was Jealous of a Petri Dish</p><p>Fitz gives Jemma a new project, and decides that might not have been such a good idea after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pet Experiment

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my tumblr. Thanks to MK for editing!

Day 1:

“Just tell her to be cautious - we’re not sure what they were working on.” Coulson turned immediately back to taking an inventory of the weapons present, leaving Fitz to scoff to himself. As if he ever needed to tell  _Simmons_ to be cautious. 

He carefully placed the broken vials and samples of mystery microbes onto a plastic tray, looking forward to seeing Simmons’ face light up when he brought her a new experiment. They had a few weeks before they would be bringing the Bus back to Koenig and Coulson’s new base team, so she’d have that time to study the samples. Coulson had been debating the merit of destroying this particular batch, since it was damaged in the fight, but Fitz knew that Simmons would love the chance to try to piece it together. 

Besides, this seemed like something he should do, as her boyfriend - bring her something she’d love.  _Boyfriend_. After over a decade of friendship, a few life-or-death experiences, and three months of dating, it still seemed foreign to him. Despite the newness of it all, they were proving to be quite good at the whole relationship transition thing, in his personal opinion, very little having changed other than the amount that they touched.

“I’ve brought you a present.” 

Simmons didn’t turn around; she was rummaging in her field kit and looking harried. “Not now, Fitz, we’ve still got this half of the site to search and I cannot find my - ah!” She pulled out a new latex glove and replaced the ripped one she was currently wearing. He cleared his throat and she looked up at him - and saw the tray of cracked dishes in his hands. As he’d expected, she made a noise of excitement and hopped up from the travel kit, completely distracted from her previous task by the simple prospect of _something new_. 

“Coulson was going to burn the lot, but since we’ve got a while before we head back to Koenig I thought you might want a pet project. After taking a quick look, I thought it might be —“

“ _Alien_ ,” she breathed, her eyes reflecting the dappled light dancing through the trees. She gingerly picked her way through the samples and took the tray from him, holding it with one hand as she lifted up the samples one by one to examine them against the sunlight. This was it, Fitz thought — this was his favorite expression of hers.  “Well, it’s hard to say where they’re from, I’ll need to take a look under a microscope to tell you that, but it definitely _could_  be alien — or it could be something from an advanced experimental facility, look at the —“ 

“Hey,” he interrupted gently, amused. “We’ve still got half a site to examine, remember?” 

“Yes, right, we do — ohhhh, but look at that!” She was lost again to her new project, and Fitz could only grin, as he turned around to report back to Coulson.

Before he could take a full step, though, he felt a gloveless hand grip his forearm and spin him back around. Simmons took hold of the front of his button-down shirt and pulled herself up to press a soft, warm kiss on his lips. “Thank you,” she whispered, and smiled in the way he knew now was only for him, and then was almost instantly three feet away again, back at work. 

Fitz stood there for a moment, probably grinning like an idiot – but he couldn’t quite stop himself. If he was an idiot, he was an idiot that Jemma Simmons cared for more than anyone else in the world, and that was enough for him.

 

Week 1:

It was the fourth time this week that Simmons had missed dinner, and although that hadn’t been unusual back at the Academy, she normally made time for “family dinner” when they were on the Bus. Fitz leaned against the steel frame of the lab door and watched her bustle from a microscope to a centrifuge and back again, fondly noting the stray hairs that she hadn’t bothered to tuck behind her ears. She made a frustrated huff, stood straight up, and promptly jumped at the sight of Fitz in the doorway.

“Fitz, you scared me!”

He raised one hand in conciliation as she went back to sorting the samples she’d been working with. “Sorry, sorry, just came to see how it was going.”

“I know, I’ll be at dinner in five minutes, I promise…” Her face fell as she noticed the tinfoil-wrapped plate in his other hand. “Oh, no. Everyone’s finished already.” 

“They were getting hungry waiting, so….” He slipped the plate onto a nearby table. “I’ll sit with you when you’re ready to eat, though.” 

Simmons sighed, making notes in her experiment log. “I just don’t know what’s wrong, Fitz. The cells are multiplying like mad and then dying just as fast, and no matter what variable I change it only seems to be getting worse, and —“ She trailed off as he wrapped his arms around her, and she leaned back into his chest. 

“Hey, you’ll fix it, okay? Just like you always do.” She made a huff of frustration back at him and he nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck, taking supreme joy that he was  _allowed to do this_  now. “I believe in you, okay?”

“Oh, Fitz,” Simmons murmured. They stood there like that, still, Fitz focusing on how her breathing was slowly relaxing… until she jumped forward, elbowing him in the rib as she reached for her notebook. Simmons turned back to him, wincing apologetically, and he waved her off.

“I’m fine, a little bruising builds character.”  Fitz watched Simmons go back to working and wondered if he should find something useful to do to keep her company. 

She glanced up at him, as if she sensed his thoughts. “I’ll page you when I’m ready to eat, okay? I promise.”

Fitz smiled back reassuringly. “Okay.” He paused at the doorway. “I like you best.”

Simmons actually paused her work to grin fully up at him this time, as if their now-practiced goodbye made her just as happy as it made him. “I like you most.”

Later that night, Fitz half-awoke as Simmons curled around him in his bed, and he took comfort in her warmth and the tickle of her hair against his neck. 

 

Week 2: 

It was the first night in five days that Simmons had agreed to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and yet she was still sitting at the table in Fitz’s room, reading something on a tablet and making notes. She had stolen Fitz’s favorite pajama trousers, again, and her hands were resting on her neck, which meant that something wasn’t going as she’d expected. 

The samples, of course, were sitting in front of her, glinting mockingly at Fitz in the solo lamp beam. He lay in bed, staring at the petri dishes and wondering why he’d ever thought bringing Simmons these samples was a good idea, pointedly ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that noted he was just like Simmons when he was developing a new piece of equipment. 

“Jemma, it’s after one in the morning.”

“I know, Fitz.” 

“You know Coulson doesn’t like it if we’re late to his morning briefings.”

She turned to stare at the bedside clock, as if she could make it start ticking backwards by looking hard enough, and then sighed. “You’re right.”

“I know.” Simmons tossed a pen at him, and he chuckled as she slid into bed next to him, turning off the light as she went. 

“It’s just that I’ve figured out how to stop the decay, but now it’s sort of plateaued, and I’ve been trying to compare it to the Chitauri samples we collected last year, but something just isn’t right…” She stopped herself, and buried her face in his shoulder to muffle a small groan of frustration. Fitz smoothed his hands over the thin fabric of her tank top, down her spine. Simmons sighed, and pulled back to look at him. “I just want to figure it out before we go back to the base, and give it to the ‘ _base team_ ,’ because honestly I can’t imagine any of them has as much experience with these kind of cells as I do!” She lapsed into silence, thinking, staying in Fitz’s arms.

“What do you think about doing a… well, maybe a sort of date night next week?” Fitz ventured, after a few minutes of comfortable silence. 

“Oh,” she replied, as if she’d been asked to do a math problem while also conducting an autopsy. 

“I just think that, you know, it’s been a while since we’ve done something off the Bus just the two of us, and it would be good. To do something outside of SHIELD — for a couple of hours.” The whole thing came out a lot faster and less coherent than Fitz would have liked, and he sighed in annoyance at himself. He refused to admit that he wanted to do a date night off the Bus because then maybe Simmons wouldn’t be so bloody focused on the samples for more than five minutes at a time.

“OH.” Simmons sat straight up in bed. “I can’t  _believe_  I didn’t think of that!” She flicked the light on, rushed back to the damned samples, and picked up her notes, skimming through them frantically. 

Fitz glowered at the petri dishes. “Jemma?”

“Hmm?”

“Date night? Next week? You and me? Boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Her lips quirked up at the corner briefly. “Yes, sounds good…  _there_  you are.” And with that, she rushed out through the door, presumably to return to the lab. 

 _This is ridiculous,_ Fitz grumbled to himself.  _I’ve lost my girlfriend to a petri dish._  The door opened again, and Simmons came rushing in, grabbed the samples, and zipped right back out. Fitz flopped back onto the bed and groaned.

 

Week 3:

“That’s it, you have to choose, right now — me or the petri dish.” They were supposed to have left for their date an hour ago, but Simmons was still staring at that damned microscope when Fitz came looking for her in the lab, and he’d gotten a tiny bit fed up. Simmons threw up her hands in utter disbelief, but Fitz was determined to make his stand.

“It’s  _my job_ , Fitz. And  _you’re_  the one who brought me the experiment in the first place!”

Oh, how he regretted that decision. “No, I mean it, you  _have_  to answer now. If you were on a deserted island, would you rather have me there, or those bloody samples?” 

Simmons just stared at him, and Fitz felt his cheeks redden. Then she exploded into laughter, leaning heavily on a lab table as she struggled to breathe through the giggles.

Fitz folded and unfolded his arms. “It wasn’t  _that_  funny.”

After she took a few gasping breaths, Simmons wiped away the tears as she smiled over at him. “Oh, Fitz. You’re jealous of… a petri dish?”

He frowned, and slouched further down against a table. “I’m not jealous.” She burst into giggles again, and he watched the way her entire face lit up when she laughed, skin flushing all the way down her neck to her collarbone — and then he was annoyed at himself for getting distracted. 

But,  _hell_ , was she pretty. 

While he’d been berating himself for losing focus, Simmons had made her way over to him. She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to look up at her. “Fitz. We are scientists.”

“I would never have known,” he quipped, gesturing lamely at their lab.

Simmons shushed him. “This is what we do when we’re working on a project — we focus on it until the problem is fixed. This is what we both do, what we’ll always do. Right?” He didn’t answer, but her hands were also keeping him from looking away — and her thumbs were brushing distractingly against his jawline. “So what’s really bothering you?” 

Fitz pulled her hands down, holding them in front of him. “You’ve been treating those things like, I dunno, like they’re your pet or something.”

“Ah, yes, discovered me cuddling with my microbes in bed again, did you?” 

He shot her a quick glare, but it lacked resolve the longer she was near him. “We were supposed to leave an hour ago,” he replied, trying to convince himself that he didn’t sound like he was sulking. 

She glanced up at the wall clock, took in a deep breath, and nodded. “You’re right, Fitz. I’m sorry.”

“What — really?” She turned around and started piling papers together, pulling off her lab coat as she went. “That’s it?” 

Simmons shook her hair out of the tie holding it back, and joined him at the front of the lab. “We’re dating now, and that means that we both need to make a little extra effort than before.” She put her hands on his chest, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “You need to be one of my priorities, too.” Fitz wasn’t sure which one of them leaned in for the kiss, but Jemma’s lips were pressed gently against his and nothing else mattered. 

Just as Fitz wrapped his arms around Simmons’ shoulders, pulling her closer, he heard a distinct cough behind them. They jumped apart to see Coulson standing warily in the loading bay, hands shoved uncharacteristically into his pockets. The three of them stared at each other for a moment, still all unfamiliar with this whole team-members-who-are-dating thing. 

Coulson cleared his throat, and looked pointedly at Simmons. “Wheels up in two hours so we can get to base by nine AM. You’ll have the samples ready for transport —“

“They’re already packed up, sir, I was just reviewing some slides before adding them to the case.”

Coulson nodded, opened his mouth, closed it again, and disappeared up the stairs into the body of the plane. Before Fitz could say anything, Simmons was striding briskly towards the plane’s exit, and he chased after her.

“You bloody liar!”

“What?” Simmons replied all-too-innocently.

“You had to have the damned petri dishes packed up anyway! All of that ‘you’re my priority,’ stuff was just —“

She placed her hand on his arm. “Fitz,” she said, catching his eye. “You know I meant that, too.” Simmons’ tone was light but her expression went deeper than that, and Fitz knew she was thinking about everything they’d been through together.

He swallowed thickly and ducked his head. “Right. Yeah, right.” Simmons dropped her hand from his arm then, still smiling, to push open the passenger door to the airfield. “You know you are for me, too, right? My priority.”

Simmons laughed, turning to him as the wind caught up her hair. “I know.” 

Together, they closed up the plane’s door and started off down the runway. Fitz glanced down at their joined hands. “I like you best,” he said softly.

Simmons grinned up at him as they continued moving, eager to get out of the cold sea air. “I like you most.”


End file.
